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remarkable fact about India, that all the Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave. The
a,, the name of the ancient capital of Magadha, and a name still occasionally applied to the city of P&tu&, which is its modern representative. The word, which means the son of the trumpet-flower (Bigno-nicb suave oletis}, appears in several different forms. A provincial form, Piitaliputrika, is common in the popular tales. The form in tbe Panchatantra is Piitaliputra, which. Wilson (Introd. to the Dasa JBTawara Charitra) considered to be the true original name of the city of which Patali-putra was a mere corruption, — sanctioned, however, by common usage. In a Sanskrit treatise of geography of a somewhat recent date, called the Kshetra Sanitisa, the form of the name is PaliWrntta, which is a near approach to Palibotra. The Ceylon chroniclers invariably wrote the name as P&tiliputto, and in the inscription of Asoka, at Girnfir it is written Pataliputta. The earliest name of the place, according to the R&niayana, was Kausambi, as having been founded by Kusa, the father of the famous sage Visva-mitra. It was also called, especially by the poets, Pash-or JCimtmapura, which has the same meaning
p&pura or JCimtmapura, which has the same meaning — ' tlie city of flowers! This city, though the least ancient of all the greater capitals in Gangetic India, was destined to-become the most famous of them. all. The Van\u Purtina attributes its foundation to Udaya (called also IJda,yagva), who mounted the throne of Magadha in the year 519 B.C., or 24< years after the Nirvdna (Vishnu PurCtna, p. 407, n. 15 ; Lassen, Ind. Alt. II. p. (33). Piitaliputra did not, however, according to the Cingalese chronicles, become the residence of the kings of Ma.gadha till the reign of Kahlwoka, who ascended the throne 458 B. c. Under Chandragupta (the Sandrakottos of the Greeks), who founded the Buddhistic dynasty of the Mauriyas, the kingdom was extended from the mouths of the Ganges to the regions beyond the Indus, and became in fact the paramount power in India. Nor was Pataliputra — to judge from the account of its size a,nd splendour given here by Arrian, and in Frag. XXV. by Strabo, who both copied it from Megasthencs — unworthy to be the capital of so great an empire. Its happy position at the confluence of the Son and Ganges, and opposite the junction of the Gandak with their united stream, naturally made it a great centre of commerce, which would no doubt greatly increase its wealth and prosperity. Asoka, who was third in succession from Chandragupta, and who made Buddhism the state religion, in Iris* inscription on the rock at Dhauli in "Katal^ gives it tho title of Metropolis of tli.c. Religion, i.e. of Buddhism. The wooden mil by wliidb, a,s Mejafaathones tells us, it was survoinulod, was still standing